RMC Expedition
This year the RMC Expedition Club, with its Kenya 2014 and Guatemala 2014 expedition teams, is going to raise funds to renew their partnership with the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. The Club is aiming to raise a minimum of $10,000 for the Child Soldiers Initiative. To donate and learn more visit the RMC Expedition page here!
– LGen Roméo Dallaire (Ret’d)“For soldiers with any sense of honour at all, fighting children offers a no-win situation. To be defeated by children would almost certainly bring death, derision and disgrace, while to win would carry the taint of having killed mere children.”
– Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations“Our military peacekeepers actually play an important role in protecting children from violations.”
– Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary General“Children are our future and if we use them in battle, we are destroying the future. We must reclaim them, every one of them, one at a time.”
– P. W. Singer, Author of Children at War“It is no coincidence that 60 per cent of the non-state armed forces in the world today deliberately make use of child soldiers. For rebel groups, using the child soldier doctrine is a way to overcome their weak starting point as far as recruiting, organization and other state-centred systemic barriers to growth.”
– LGen Roméo Dallaire, Ret'd“The ultimate focus of the rest of my life is to eradicate the use of child soldiers and to eliminate even the thought of the use of children as an instrument of war.”
– Stephen Lewis“I think that taking on the child soldier cause is one of the most difficult because of the brutalization and the indifference of governments and paramilitaries is incredible. This is a real undertaking. What I so admire about the Initiative is its focus on trying to break the pattern somehow.”
Download the Handbook
Published in the winter of 2012, Child Soldiers: A Handbook for Security Sector Actors highlights the various roles military, police and peacekeepers can play in protecting all children affected by war (PDF 34 Mb).
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Drawing on their vast experiences, General Roméo Dallaire and Stephen Lewis enter into a dialogue about the issues that they have committed their lives to: the eradication of the use of child soldiers and stopping the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa.
All of us at the Initiative wish to thank our allies, donors, partners and friends for having assisted our work throughout the past year. Our efforts would not be possible without your ongoing support.